Card cages are known, in which a framework is provided to define a card receiving region in which pairs of card guides establish locations for insertion of daughter cards therealong, for connectors mounted at a leading edge of each thereof to mate with corresponding connectors of a backplane traversing the rear of the card receiving region. The backplane provides for electrical connections of the circuits of each daughter card inserted to circuits of other daughter cards as desired or to conductors of input/output cable. One such card cage is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,846,699 directed to a system for providing electrical power to the components mounted on the daughter cards.
A backplane is disclosed in U. S. Pat. No. 4,582,374 which interconnects a high density of signal circuits of cards mountable along a front face thereof with corresponding circuits along a back face thereof, as well as providing power interconnections and ground.
Another particular form of card cage is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,808,115 in which circuit cards mounted within modules are insertable into an enclosure or box commonly referred to as a black box and containing a mother board to which the circuit cards are interconnected. The modules are referred to as line replaceable modules.
Aircraft have a great many electrical circuits interconnecting a variety of electrical articles thereon such as black boxes, sensors, instrument panels and the like, and the circuits are commonly interconnected in regions termed electronics bays. Various arrangements have been devised to provide for disconnectable interconnections of the circuits and are known as wire integration systems. Two such systems are disclosed in U. S. Pat. No. 4,735,583 and 4,995,821. Discrete wire conductors are used to define the interconnections.
Electrical connectors are known which are mounted to edges of daughter cards and which are matable with connectors of a backplane to provide a high density of electrical connections between the circuits of the daughter card and circuits of the backplane. In addition to connectors disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,808,115 and 4,846,699 and 4,582,374, another such connector is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,715,829.
It is desired to provide an arrangement for protecting the terminations of several arrays of terminals along the leading edge of a daughter card with the circuits of the daughter card, when the daughter card is subjected to stresses during insertion into a card cage and mating to corresponding connectors of a backplane.